


An Air of Devil-May-Care

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [187]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-22 15:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16600949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: A guest arrives at Mr. Stark's estate to shepherd him through his heat. Peter's not sure what to make of him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Rescue. Prompt from this [generator](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/promptsnsfw).

“Mr. Parker!” a voice called from the drawing room. “Is that you?”

Peter stopped mid-step, cursing the creaky boards of the hall. “Yes, Mr. Stark.”

His guardian’s face appeared in the doorway, flushed with good humor and more that a little brandy. “Quit skulking about, then, and come meet our guest.”

There were a dozen things in that moment that Peter wanted to be doing. He wanted very much, for example, to take the backstairs to the kitchen and wheedle his way into an early set of cakes and sandwiches; it was barely half past two, but he felt sure that one especially sad glance at Miss Potts, she who ruled the roost, and he’d be seated at the kitchen table, his cup hot and his plate full. If the weather were not quite so cold, he would have liked to tramp about outside in the snow, to run with the dogs down to the pond and marvel at the lonely countryside now draped in white. He would have even found it acceptable to retire to his room with nary a snack and only his book for company, the one he’d sped downstairs to fetch silently from the library knowing full well that Mr. Stark and his guest, Captain Rogers, were ensconced in the drawing room where they’d been holed up since the captain had arrived just after the midday meal.

Nowhere on his list of preferred activities, however, was spending time with the two men. Had it been Mr. Stark alone, as it was most days at the manor, he would have gladly rushed in and curled up in the chair opposite Mr. Stark’s by the fire and spent the afternoon greedily basking in his mentor’s attention. He would have welcomed the chance to trace the way the firelight cast its glow upon Mr. Stark’s face or listening to his laugh or feeling the singular intensity of Mr. Stark’s gaze as he himself spoke; for all the distance in their ages and station, never once had Mr. Stark made him feel anything less than an intellectual peer. True, he was a pupil here, but Mr. Stark did not as a rule highlight what Peter lacked, but instead went carefully about the business of filling in those gaps. Sometimes there were formal lectures; other times, hours spent in the wilds of Mr. Stark’s lab; but Peter’s favorite lessons were those delivered offhandedly in conversation, in talks on long walks in summer, in the low fields in the fall, and now, in winter, most often posed in the drawing room, the warmest and most welcoming space in the whole house.

So if it had been solely he and Mr. Stark, Peter would not have felt the prospect so grim. But on this afternoon--for the next week at least, if the servants were to be believed--they would not be alone.

As soon as Peter crossed the threshold, Mr. Stark threw an arm around his shoulders and towed him towards the hearth.

“Steven!” Mr. Stark bellowed. “This is the brilliant young man whose virtues I’ve been extolling. See, he is real. He does exist.”

“I never doubted that,” said the man by the fire, rising to his polished boots and stretching out his hand.

“Peter Parker,” Mr. Stark said with a flourish. “This is my great friend Captain Steven Rogers.”

“Please,” the captain said, “call me Steven.” His grip was firm but not crushing and his eyes were high and bright. “I’m nobody’s captain here, for which I am profoundly grateful.”

“Sir,” Peter said, doing his best to manufacture a smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“And you. Tony’s told me so much about you.”

“Has he?”

“None of it good!” Mr. Stark called from the side table where he was busy with the brandy. “Rest assured that I’ve shared all of your bad qualities first, Peter, so that when Steven finally made your acquaintance, he’d be pleasantly surprised.”

The captain laughed. “He’s done no such thing. Now come over here by the fire, young sir. If your hand is any indication, you’re halfway to freezing.”

Peter opened his mouth to protest but it did no good; Captain Rogers was already steering him towards a seat.

“Would you like some brandy?” The captain looked down at him, his mouth turned up kindly. "I think I nip would do you some good, if Tony’s not drunk it all.”

“I’ve done no such thing,” Mr. Stark harrumphed, throwing himself back into his seat. “And Mr. Parker’s too young for spirits. I won’t have you corrupting him in your first hour here. You’re under no obligation to answer to his aunt when I roll him back to London as a bohemian drunkard at the age of 18.”

“All that from two sips of brandy? Or perhaps this is one of your inventions masquerading as brandy, is that it? Some sort of chemical that goes straight to the brain?”

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes, did it again when the captain returned with a short glass which he pressed into Peter’s hands. “Just because you’re here to thoroughly debauch me, Steven, doesn’t mean you need do so with him.”

Something seized in Peter’s throat and he wanted to choke. Trust Mr. Stark to be flippant about such things, to speak of them in mixed company and with such an air of devil-may-care.

“Tony,” the captain said reproachfully. “There’s no need to be crass.”

“I’ve explained to Mr. Parker in general terms what the next days will hold,” Mr. Stark shot back. “He’s not a child, Steven. He’s more than old enough to understand.”

Peter closed his eyes and risked a sip of brandy and wished for all the world he could sink through the floor. That Mr. Stark was on the verge of his heat was bad enough; that he should speak of it so freely was difficult for Peter to comprehend.

Perhaps it was different for alphas, the knowledge that one’s next few days would be lost in a haze. Perhaps they did not feel the same shame that flooded Peter whenever the first waves of his heat struck him, a battery of sensation that had more than once send him to his knees. It had only happened once since he’d been on Mr. Stark’s estate and to say they had been the most deeply humiliating of his life was no exaggeration. His scent was everywhere in the house, he knew it; there was none among the servants even who could have been unaware, never mind Mr. Stark. Worse, Peter knew he’d cried out for things that were filthy, begged his lonely room for things that were wrong, and he knew he’d taken Mr. Stark’s name in far worse than in vain. When the fever had broken and one of the maids had finally been allowed in, she’d told him that Mr. Stark had taken to his heels a few nights before so vociferous, so inappropriate were Peter’s shouted demands. When Mr. Stark had returned, however, he’d made no mention of any inconvenience and had swept into Peter’s sickroom with new books and new diversions, a hearty smile and an air of undeniable relief.

That he should face his own heat with such offhanded equanimity, then, struck Peter as almost obscene.

“Regardless, it’s not a topic for mixed company,” the captain said firmly, snapping open the cigar box on the mantel. “So truly, Tony: enough.” He leaned his shoulder to the stone and snapped a match. “If I can vouch for Mr. Stark’s good behavior for this evening, Mr. Parker, will you dine with us? I have been so looking forward to meeting you.”

From most other of Mr. Stark’s friends, Peter would have taken this statement as a jibe. None of the beautiful and witty people who herded in and out of the place when the weather was fine had ever, to his recollection, even looked at him twice. To them, glittering figures all, he was part of the background: _Tony’s latest project_ , he’d heard himself called. None of them could understand why Mr. Stark was mucking about with a downtrodden omega of absolutely no station whose only virtue was the power of his brain, not his bank account or his prowess in bed.

“If Tony’s not going to fuck him,” a party guest had once said in his presence, looking him up and down with disdain, “then frankly, I can’t fathom why he’s here.”

Her companion had laughed. “Tsk tsk, darling. Tony can only get it up for other alphas, the poor creature. You know that.”

“My point,” the woman had said with a sniff, “exactly.”

But from Captain Rogers’s lips, to Peter’s great surprise, the sentiment felt genuine. Perhaps it was his open expression, or the way his smile bloomed inside of his beard; the concern he’d shown for Peter’s well-being from the first moment they met. He radiated a confidence, a contentment with himself, that made the air around him inviting, and something in Peter, something raw and elemental, told him that for all the newness of their acquaintance, Captain Rogers was a man he could trust.

So he set down his glass and smiled at them both, Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you. If I won’t be a hindrance, I’d be happy to dine with you.”

“Hindrance?” Mr. Stark said. “Oh, no, Mr. Parker. You’ll save me. Steve will spare you the minutia of his military nonsense; alone, he’d never spare me.”

The captain laughed and blew out a long coil of smoke. “And you’ll rescue me from detailed discussions of country gossip, about which Tony knows I don’t give a whit. Which is precisely why he insists upon telling me.”

“And anyway,” Mr. Stark said with a wave, “after tonight, I’ll have only the captain’s company to rely on for far too long.” He lifted his eyebrows at Peter and gave him a wink. “Best to bask in the presence of others while I still can, don’t you think?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

He was still in a cheeky mood a few hours later when Peter joined them for supper, joshing with the servants as they carried out tray after tray, piling the dining room table close to bursting. There were a half dozen kinds of roasted vegetables and two whole chickens; two different soups for starters and rice in a thick, rich gravy; fresh, warm bread filled with dried herbs and rolls fairly dripping with butter. One could never say that Mr. Stark’s meals were skimpy affairs, but this went far above and beyond.

“Are we expecting more company?” Peter said through a mouthful of potatoes, their skins crisp, their flesh seasoned salt and cream.

“Ah, no,” Captain Rogers answered, for Mr. Stark was too busy tearing at a drumstick to answer.

“Then why on earth is there so much? Believe me, I’m not complaining, but you should hear Miss Potts, sir, and the way she’ll fuss about the waste.”

Mr. Stark chuckled and scrubbed at his mouth, reached across the condiments for the wine. “She’ll do no such thing this evening. She understands that this sort of flagrant excess is a necessity on this night.”

“On this night?” Peter felt his eyes widen. “Oh, you mean--oh!”

“You’ll be dining alone for a few days,” Mr. Stark said. He was smirking again, his mischief bright in the candlelight. “And in the meantime, dear boy, if past is prologue, then I have need to build up my strength.”

“Peter,” Captain Rogers interrupted. “I don’t know if they’d be of interest to you, but I’ve brought with me a great many books. I’m carrying them up to my family later this month. In the meantime, they’re simply sitting in a trunk; if you like, I can have it sent to your room.”

“What sort of books?”

“Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that.” The captain’s mouth curved. “There are many varied interests in my mother’s household and many eyes that read at a speed that would astound you. My sister Natasha is especially voracious."

“Ah,” Mr. Stark said, his teeth half-sunk into a roll. “yes, but Peter here devours words faster than you or I ever could and, more to the point, retains every last one.”

“Is that so?”

“It is, sir. Yes.”

“Well then.” Captain Rogers reached out and tapped two fingers on the back of Peter’s wrist, a solid, affirmative rap. “Perhaps you’ll get through the whole lot before I take my leave.”

Peter returned the smile, tentative, and felt, even amongst all this strangeness, a ripple of assurance and comfort. “Perhaps I shall.”

 

*****  


It was only later when he lay in bed, curled around a hot water bottle and shivering against the cold fingers of the night, that he realized what the captain had done: he’d reacted to Peter’s distress as an alpha, not as a stranger whom Peter had only just met. Rogers had sensed his discomfort and done his best to bring comfort: first with the proffered gift of something he must have known Peter loved and then, at the end, with his scent.

Peter drew his face beneath the blankets and shivered. Did he still have the captain’s scent on him now? He had washed himself before bed, teeth chattering as he bent over the basin, but if he lifted his hand just now, would he be able to catch a hint of Captain Rogers there, lingering, the rough spicy sweetness idling beneath the smell of hot water and lavender soap?

What harm could there be in seeing if that were so?

He stirred beneath the covers and drew his hand up and that was when he heard Mr. Stark roar.

There was no other word for it, that sound, one that smashed for good the pretense of sleep. It was so loud, so resonate, that Peter was sure even the servants in the opposite wing of the house could hear it, that tremulous, furious thing.

He bit his lip and waited. Would it come again?

Mr. Stark’s rooms lay to the left of his. They were far larger than Peter’s, far more expansive, and a dressing room, a closet, and an anteroom separated their sleeping chambers. Three rooms and many walls and yet Mr. Stark’s cry seemed as though it had been pitched right into Peter’s, as if no more than mere air lay between them.

He listened again to the stillness, teeth chattering now, the quilt caught in his fists. Would it come again?

He closed his eyes and though he did not wish it, his mind turned in a fury to all the stories he’d heard over the years about alphas in their heats, all the tall tales. He had read the best science about it, the strange ways of the body when the one-a-year cycle reached its apotheosis; the best gentlemanly guidance, too, about how a courteous man should react to his biological frailties and those of the other sex. He had always supposed that, for an omega, he understood more than enough; it would be not for he to understand how and when to restrain his own lusts, how to secure a partner--best in wedlock, but outside it if necessary--to help him navigate his body’s own angry tides. As an omega, he could simply lock himself away, shield himself from the world and the world from his presence until the hateful cycle was over and done. Alphas bore no such luxuries; they had to surrender to their biological imperative or flirt with the possibility of death.

But to know these things in the abstract was, he was discovering, far different than staring the practical realities in the face. While his own trials with heat had humiliated him, he had taken some comfort in Mr. Stark’s stalwartness, his ability to look past the incident and continue on as they always had, as if he’d not heard Peter crying feverishly for him during those long, awful days.

 _Yes,_ his treacherous, overtired mind murmured, _but what if Captain Rogers had been here when you suffered? Had flown to your side to see that you didn’t, to see you through your heat with pleasure instead of--_

Then shout came, a low, hungry growl, and Peter chased the thought back as the stillness reverberated with the sound of two voices now: Mr. Stark’s cries untamed, the captain’s voice deeper, more certain, more controlled. There were words this time, a smattering of sense pressed among the furious noises, but he did not want to hear them, did his best not to; rolled his head between two pillows and buried his hips in the softness of the bed.

He would talk with Miss Potts in the morning, he told himself, squinching his eyes as tightly shut as they might, as if in refusing to see he might also refuse to hear. He couldn’t stay here for the duration, could not return every night to this bed if his sleep was to be interrupted always by this, the echoes of ardor, summer thunder blooming amongst winter snow. He was wet and he smelled of Captain Rogers and he wanted so very much to touch but he could not, he couldn’t. He would not allow himself. Not now.

The caveat comforted him. Not now, not while the captain was here. Not while Mr. Stark was slave to the basest instincts of his body and mind.

But when Mr. Stark’s heat was over, when Captain Rogers had packed up and gone, then and only then would he return to this moment and any more over the coming days like it. Only when the matter had concluded would he climb into some warm, private place and free himself from his breeches and think again on the glorious, terrible symphony that shook his walls, that mayhap would shake them for days to come.

There would be no dishonor in it then, no fear that he was taking advantage; he would be playing with his own memories, the carefully noted descriptions of his own embodied sensations, and surely no man could take offense at that.

It was a small comfort, this notion, but a comfort nonetheless. One that made it easier for him to breathe. To breathe and sit up, to sit up and strike a match, to strike a match and open the small notebook that lay on his bed table and set upon it with a pencil.

 _Half-past midnight_ , he wrote. _December 3_. _I have been awakened by a roar that I have little doubt belongs to Mr. Stark. Captain Rogers has answered in kind._

There came a crash, then a long, heated wail, and he pressed his pencil so hard to the paper it nearly broke.

And then he wrote:

_Here, then, I shall record what I cannot help but have heard._


End file.
